Dear Darrow Community,

The Darrow Board of Trustees wishes to convey our sincere apology for a lack of clarity on the situation regarding the school's status for the '24-'25 school year. Despite our best efforts to reach a final decision on Saturday, and despite what you may have heard through unofficial channels, a final, binding vote has not yet occurred. We know you need and want certainty, especially for the students, as well as the school's faculty and staff. We are working hard to provide that certainty. More important, however, is that we get it right.

The Board met for many hours on Friday and Saturday. Despite reaching a strong majority agreeing that closure is the only viable path under our financial circumstances, due to requirements of New York State law, we did not meet the legal threshold of 75% of the trustees voting for closure. Since then, some of those voting to keep the school open have indicated they would change their vote to closure. Therefore, we will reconvene later this week to vote once again. We cannot do so, however, until we meet our three-day notice period, as required by our Bylaws.

In the meantime, you should know that there has been a tremendous outpouring of support for the school since our communication in the fall, and through your efforts, we received pledges of over $2 million. While this is remarkable, it nevertheless falls well short of the $5-$7 million we stated was required to open the school for next year. As a reminder, even if we hit that "opening" number, it would only buy us a little time to see if raising an additional $20-$25 million would be possible, without which Darrow simply cannot survive. This conclusion is based upon many years of work by multiple Boards to fix Darrow's broken financial issues.

The Board is in 100% agreement on this: we all desperately want the school to survive. Darrow has changed many lives and is needed in this world. The love for the school has never been in question, but without a massive infusion of cash, Darrow simply cannot pay its teachers or its bills. 

The Board will continue to hold out hope that the additional millions of dollars will appear. If that happens, we will gladly reconsider. 

With gratitude,

Darrow Board of Trustees

trustees@darrowschool.org